It's across the street from a Cici's Pizza; it shares a parking lot with a Capital One. It's a scene anonymous in its own right, one that exists on the periphery of any large- or medium-sized city in America.

While around him people sipped coffee and skimmed through novels at one of Barnes and Noble's 700 branches, twenty miles away, the Pentagon had no idea of what had just been triggered. Maybe B&N should get rid of those bookstores after all.